


i shall not be left to wander

by iphigenias



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, F/F, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 00:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: Catra’s grip in her hand is firm, and unwavering. Her gaze, even more so. “Look around,” she says. “You’re their Herald. You’re all they have. And I’m –”“AllIhave.” Adora tugs Catra closer until they’re almost nose to nose. “You’re all I have. I don’t care about them.”Catra smiles, and it’s the same as ever: just this side of too sharp. “You always were a terrible liar.”*(Or, the Dragon Age: Inquisition AU)





	i shall not be left to wander

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to the 6k dragon age au i thought would be 2k, max. prior knowledge of the dragon age universe would probably be a good thing but a quick run-down of my fusion verse is as follows:
> 
> hordak is a powerful being from another realm who causes a near-apocalyptic explosion at the conclave (like a religious meeting) of thedas, that kills the religious leader known as the divine but which adora interrupts, granting her new power known as the 'anchor'. she leaves the templar order she was a part of with catra to join the rebel mage alliance, who form the inquisition with adora as inquisitor to try and bring stability back to the world. meanwhile, hordak seizes control over the templars and continues to try and destroy the world. adora works to stop him - but also to save catra from his clutches, too. and that's about it? any questions, drop me a line in the comments. 
> 
> title is from the chant of light, canticle of trials 1:14
> 
>  **edit:** almost forgot to credit [this incredible art](https://twitter.com/supersappho/status/1143982139869978627?s=20) on twitter that gave me the idea for the fic in the first place! amazing spectacular show-stopping never been done before

**01.**

The world burns bright around them.

“Catra,” Adora pleads, her arm stretched out into the space between them. “Please.”

Catra’s grip in her hand is firm, and unwavering. Her gaze, even more so. “Look around,” she says. “You’re their Herald. You’re all they have. And I’m –”

“All _I_ have.” Adora tugs Catra closer until they’re almost nose to nose. “You’re all I have. I don’t care about them.”

Catra smiles, and it’s the same as ever: just this side of too sharp. “You always were a terrible liar.” Slowly, deliberately, Catra lets go. She begins to bleed at the edges, fading like old ink on parchment.

“Catra _please_ –” Adora begins, but there’s no one there.

Adora wakes up alone.

**02.**

The rebels didn’t trust her at first and Adora doesn’t blame them. Her templar armour never did do her many favours – Catra always used to say it looked too big on her, like a child trying on their parent’s clothes. Of course, neither of them knew what that was really like – they’d been raised in the order since before Adora could remember, Knight-Captain Weaver the closest person either of them got to a mother, if a mother was someone who taught you how to hold a sword and sent your sprawling across the room with a stinging cheek if you got it wrong.

“Divine Angella is dead,” they told her, and walked her through the burning town of Haven, laid to waste by templar swords. There was a pile of cloaked bodies lying just outside the chantry she’d been held prisoner in – Adora had seen a wrapped figure with its arm hanging loose, hand too small to belong to anyone but a child.

“These can’t all have been rebels,” she’d said, aghast. The mage – Glimmer – had followed her gaze. There was a depth to her sadness Adora never knew existed.

“They weren’t,” she’d replied, and the world Adora thought she’d known crumbled to dust beneath her feet, as unsteady and unknowable as the angry green tear in the sky.

**03.**

“We have to make our move,” Adora says, hands planted on the war table laid out in front of her. “Hordak only grows stronger the longer we wait.”

“There’s a powerful energy source in the Arbor Wilds,” Perfuma says, pointing to the region on the map. Her hair is loose over her shoulders like always, but Adora can still see the tips of her pointed ears poking through the curls. They remind her, helplessly, of Catra. “He’s bound to be after that.”

“Then we get to it first,” Glimmer replies. “Can you get the troops together by first light?”

“Is that even a question?” Bow shoots back. Adora sees traces of Catra in his smile; misses the sharpened canines.

Adora finds Glimmer after the council disbands. “I need your word,” she says. “If we find Catra in the Wilds, we capture her alive.”

Glimmer’s expression holds the same depth of grief Adora glimpsed all those months ago. “Every templar under Hordak’s command should be corrupted with red lyrium by now,” Glimmer replies carefully. “She won’t be the Catra you know. Not anymore.”

“I don’t care.” Adora pictures Catra as she had last seen her: crouched on the balustrade at the Winter Palace in her red ceremonial uniform, stolen from the Inquisition’s supplies. The glint of her yellow eye in the moonlight before she dropped silently into the gardens below and slipped away in the night. Adora had ordered a search party to look for her but even before they came back with nothing, she knew Catra was long gone.

_“You never could outrun me,” Catra grinned, hands on hips as she stood over Adora’s slumped body. “Adora? You okay?”_

_She let out a shriek as Adora sprang into action, grabbing Catra’s ankles and hauling her to the ground so they sprawled side-by-side. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Adora said smugly. “Speed isn’t everything, you know.”_

_“Yeah, well, neither is strength.” Catra rolled on her side to look at Adora. “S’why we make such a great team.”_

_“Yeah duh,” Adora replied, wriggling out of the way as Catra made a grab for her ponytail. “We’ll be the first co-Knight-Captains in templar history.”_

_“Why do you have to make things so lame?” Catra said, rolling her eyes, but she was smiling a smile Adora knew by heart that took the sting from her words like it always did._

“I don’t care,” Adora says again to Glimmer, forcibly pulling herself from the memory. “I can’t abandon her. Not again.”

“It’s a two-way street, Adora,” Glimmer replies. “She left you, too.”

“But I left first.” Adora releases a long, slow breath. “Promise me.”

There’s a pause. “I promise,” Glimmer says, quiet. She leaves Adora without another word.

**04.**

She doesn’t always dream about Catra. But when she does, it’s –

the force of Catra’s twin fangs attack driving Adora backwards in the bloodied dirt, her greatsword too slow to successfully parry with and Catra knows that, her grin all the confirmation Adora needs as she draws her daggers back for a deathblow –

the sticky feel of Catra’s hand in hers, stolen caramels still clinging to the roofs of their mouths, laughing as they run from the barracks kitchen with Cook bellowing black and blue behind them –

the press of Catra’s blade into Adora’s side, a whispered _don’t move_ as Catra climbs onto the bed over Adora and straddles her, leaning into her space and igniting goosebumps along Adora’s skin with her breath all the while her dagger plays pinfinger between Adora’s ribs –

a lot.

She learns to sleep with a knife beneath her pillow, just in case.

**05.**

It takes them a little over two weeks to reach the Arbor Wilds with the full strength of their fighting force. Bow’s rangers had scouted ahead a week earlier and there’s already a base camp set up by the time they arrive, to Adora’s great relief. She’s saddle-sore and tired, her nights ever since leaving Skyhold full of restless sleep and less-than-pleasant dreams. They haven’t seen any sign of Hordak or his templars yet, but Adora knows that means next to nothing. They hadn’t seen them coming at Haven, either.

“Seahawk, status report,” she asks the lead scout, an annoying yet annoyingly charming rogue Mermista enjoys poking with her trident whenever she has the chance.

“The Arbor Wilds are… wild, Inquisitor, but the regular kind of wild. No red templars in sight.”

“Good,” Adora sighs. She looks to Glimmer and Bow. “Think we can spare a night’s rest?”

“I’ve literally wanted nothing more,” Glimmer replies, and it makes Adora smile.

Her tent is waiting for her and she collapses inside as soon as she’s slung the sword from her back. Sleep should come quickly, but it doesn’t – she lies awake and listens to the sound of camp winding down for the night, the soft crackle of the watchman’s fire right outside her tent flap, the stroke of the breeze through the leaves of the Arbor’s great oaks, their creaking and groaning as the wind shifts their mighty branches.

She’s finally, blessedly, almost asleep when she hears it: the snap of a twig underfoot and the soft, wet gasp of a slit throat. Her sword is too big to manoeuvre in the dark so Adora grabs the dagger from her saddlebag and edges to the front of her tent, peeking through the flap and wishing, not for the first time in her life, that she had Catra’s elven vision.

As if conjured from Adora’s mind, a figure leaps soundlessly through the tent flap, snatching Adora’s dagger with one hand and propelling them both back into the bedding, one arm over Adora’s mouth to stop her from alerting the rest of the camp. Mismatched blue and yellow eyes find hers in the dark and Adora thinks, briefly, disorientedly: _I’ve had dreams like this_.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra says. “Scream and I’ll kill more than just one guard.” She lifts her arm from Adora’s mouth, snatching it quickly into the air when Adora lunges up to bite it. “Play nice, Inquisitor,” Catra grins.

“Get off me.” Adora squirms to free herself but Catra is straddled firmly over her body and holds Adora easily in place. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

For half a second Catra’s eyes go dark. “I’m here to tell you to stay out of the way,” she says in a low voice. “Stay away or he’ll kill you.”

“And what? You wanted to do the honours yourself?” Adora’s heart is beating thunderously in her ears. Her whole body feels like it’s on fire but she isn’t sure it’s fear that set it alight.

Catra leans in. “You know how I hate to ruin a pretty face,” she sneers, but there’s something in her voice that catches on the lie of the words and besides, Adora can read the truth in her shaking palms, the tell-tale hollowed out cheek that Catra chews on when she’s nervous.

“I don’t want you to get hurt either,” she says quietly, and Catra scoffs. “I mean it. The Inquisition can protect you – _I_ can protect you.”

“When have I ever needed your protection?” Catra spits. “When have I ever _wanted_ your protection?”

“We’ve always needed each other,” Adora replies. “Please, Catra. I can’t walk away from this. You know I can’t. But you can.”

Catra laughs at that, quietly, humorously. “If you think that then you really are naïve. You think your friends would welcome me with open arms? That they wouldn’t, oh, I don’t know, _execute me on sight_?”

“I wouldn’t let them,” Adora whispers. Catra laughs again.

“That mark on your hand only takes you so far, Inquisitor. You’re in charge because your people want you to be. And their opinion can easily change.”

“I don’t care,” Adora says, and in the words she feels the echo of her conversation with Glimmer back at Skyhold. “I’m not abandoning you. Not –”

“– again?” Catra finishes for her. “It’s a nice thought, Adora. _Very_ romantic. Why, I’m swept off my very feet.” She meets Adora’s gaze, blue-yellow eyes unflinching. Outside, there’s a shout as the guard’s body is discovered. “Time’s up,” Catra says. Something like a shutter slams closed behind her eyes and for half a moment, she looks a stranger. “Get killed for all I care.”

“I know you’re lying,” Adora says, as the camp comes to life around them. “I know _you_ , Catra.”

In one swift movement Catra releases her, springing to her feet and slicing open the back of the tent with Adora’s dagger. “No, you don’t,” she says, dropping the knife to the ground. “Not anymore.” She’s gone between blinks.

Not a minute later, Adora’s tent flap opens. “Are you okay?” Glimmer asks, crowding into the tent with Bow behind her. She spots the slit in the canvas. “What happened?”

Adora picks up the dagger. “I had a nightmare. Thought the tent was Hordak.” She clears her throat. “What happened outside?”

“Someone killed a guard,” Bow replies. “We think it was a templar scout. Which means –”

“– we’re already behind,” Adora finishes. So much for sleep. She grabs her greatsword from where she’d ditched it only a few hours ago and slings it over her shoulder. “Get everyone together. The attack begins now.”

**06.**

Here is the truth of it all: Catra never even liked being a templar.

**07.**

They break through the Wilds easily. Adora is glad to have Mermista with her in the fray – most of their heavy hitters are mages, plus Bow, and it can be infuriating fighting up close all alone.

She doesn’t see Catra in the fighting, didn’t expect to. Most of the blows Adora lands are on red templars and their lyrium behemoths – she hadn’t seen any traces of the poison in Catra’s eyes last night and for that, at least, Adora is grateful – though she wonders how long it will last.

The Temple of Mythal looms ahead and they reach it in what seems like an instant, but still an instant too late. Hordak has blown a hole through the temple’s sanctum and Adora watches as he disappears into the dim. “We have to follow him,” she says, already shouldering her sword to give chase, but Perfuma stills her with a hand on her arm.

“It’s not right,” she says. “This is a sacred place. There are rituals to complete.”

“Tell that to Hordak,” Adora snaps and it’s too late to take the barb back. Perfuma bites her lip and says nothing.

“Templars are all the same,” Glimmer says, and her tone is light even as the words are not. “We can figure out some rituals, right, Adora?”

It feels like the beginning all over again. Like she is crawling out of her skin from lyrium withdrawal in the cell of Haven’s chantry; like she is nothing, less than nothing, worth nothing as a templar in the world her people had helped destroy. “Sure,” she forces herself to say, following Glimmer’s lead through the atrium, but with every step into this place where magic is riddled deep into every last stone, she feels more and more adrift. _You’re in charge because people want you to be_ , Catra had told her – Adora isn’t so sure she was lying, and now she catches herself wondering how long it will last – how long the mark on her hand will hide the fact that she’s still a templar, down to her very bones.

**08.**

By some miracle, they reach the Well of Sorrows before Hordak and his men. Adora stares into the depths of the pool, drawn in by its shimmering surface and the secrets it must hide beneath. “Do not lose yourself, Inquisitor,” Perfuma murmurs with a quelling hand on Adora’s arm. “The Well is more perilous than it looks.”

“This is what Hordak is after,” Adora says softly, leaning in closer to get a better look at the ripples undulating across the Well’s surface, made by some unseen force. “Perhaps – we should take it, instead.”

“ _Adora_ ,” Glimmer says, sharply, and something in her voice jolts Adora back into herself. She is hovering over the pool, scant inches from its mirrored surface – horrified, she scrambles back to a safe distance.

“What is that thing?”

“Power,” Perfuma replies. “Knowledge. It must be drunk to be acquired.”

They look at the Well. “I’m the Inquisitor,” Adora says, even as the thought of drinking from the pool makes her skin crawl like it’s alight with veilfire when only moments ago she had been mesmerised. “I should drink.”

“The Well is magic, and will respond best to someone with it,” Perfuma cautions. Adora flexes her left hand.

“The mark is magic enough. I won’t put anyone else in danger.” She expects a protest but there is none; closes her eyes for the briefest of moments, steeling herself. When she opens them, she feels alone, though she knows her friends are standing just outside her field of vision.

Adora steps forward to the lip of the pool. Unsheathes her sword and rests it on the cobblestones at her feet. The mark on her hand crackles to life, as if aware of her intention – it burns like it always does, just this side of painful. She takes a breath and steps forward into the water –

only to have her ankle wrenched back by a grip she would know in her sleep.

Adora tumbles back into the ground on top of Catra, who grunts and pushes her off as quickly as she’d dragged her down. “How many times do I have to save your ass,” Catra spits, scrambling to her feet and blocking Adora’s access to the Well.

“Get out of the way, Catra,” Adora says desperately, knowing that behind her three mages, one rogue, and a warrior all have their weapons primed to attack. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you shared that same sentiment for yourself?” Catra replies, drawing her daggers in one swift movement. Adora can see poison glistening along their blades. “This will kill you, Adora. Magic always does.”

A ghost, perhaps, of the lyrium Adora once took like breathing, thrums through her veins. “It doesn’t,” she replies, the words pulled from her like teeth. “Not always. We were lied to, Catra. All those years – don’t you get it?”

“What I get is you’ve lost your mind,” Catra replies, drawing a small vial from her pocket and holding it out to Adora. “It’s the withdrawal talking,” she says, and there’s a desperation to her voice Adora has never heard before. “Please, take it. And come back to me.”

“I don’t need it anymore,” Adora whispers, even as the lyrium calls to her. She shuts her ears to its song. “And you don’t either. It’s only a matter of time before Hordak gives you the red lyrium and then –”

Catra cuts her off. “I’m not as stupid as I look,” she says. “That stuff will kill you.” She flicks a dagger in the direction of the Well. “And so will that. Please, just listen to me.”

There’s a great rumble that echoes through the cavern and the rear wall suddenly explodes in a shower of rock and dust. Hordak emerges from the shadows, expression triumphant until it locks with Adora’s and turns murderous.

“We have to go!” Glimmer yells, even as she casts a protective barrier around them all – including Catra, who is standing too close to Adora to be left out of the spell.

“We can’t leave the Well for Hordak,” Perfuma cries, wringing her hands. Frosta, quiet since the battle began, steps forward.

“If we can’t drink it, then perhaps we can destroy it.” Before Adora can protest, she freezes the water with a flourish of her staff, ice stealing over the surface like ivy reclaiming crumbling stone foundations. With a yell, she shatters it, and Adora ducks just in time to avoid being impaled on the ice. When she looks again, the Well is empty.

Hordak’s scream of fury echoes throughout the chamber.

“We have to go. _Now_ ,” Adora yells, spotting an eluvian – a portal, like the one Perfuma had showed her back in Skyhold – by the opposite edge of the pool crater. “Can you open it?” she asks desperately, and Perfuma raises her staff without answering. As she begins some kind of complex incantation, Adora turns her attention back to Catra – who is collapsed on the ground, a shard of ice impaled through the back of her shoulder and out the other side. Only inches down and it would have struck her heart.

Adora falls to her knees. “Catra?” she whispers, looking up at Perfuma’s shout and seeing the eluvian swirl to life. “Catra, will you come?”

Catra’s eyes snap open and she lashes out at Adora with a dagger swing that misses by a mile, her movement impeded by the injury. “Fuck. You,” she spits out.

“ _Adora!_ ” Glimmer calls, standing alone by the eluvian, everyone else gone through the glassy surface. Adora hesitates for only half a second, and when she reaches the portal with Hordak only ten paces behind her, it’s with Catra in her arms. They jump through the eluvian together, and it feels like falling.

**09.**

She dreams of a maple tree in a field of dry grass. The sky is green with the tear in the Fade and there’s a smell of smoke to the air, as of a wood fire burning.

She has no sword; her armour is gone, leaving her only in her shift. Her hair’s tied up the way it always used to be, when she was still in the order.

The maple tree gives a great sigh and cracks right down through the middle, peeling to each side like the skin of an orange and from the black rent in its heart, Hordak emerges. He’s holding something in his right hand, something unmoving and vaguely familiar that Adora can’t make out, but there’s such a feeling of wrongness to it all that her stomach rebels all at once and she empties it into the dirt. The vomit is black as smoke and bubbles where it hits the ground; Adora wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and feels the bile like acid tear into her skin.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she says, even as her legs shake. _Know no fear_ , Knight-Captain Weaver used to say. _Fear makes you weak. You must conquer it, to survive._

“You always were a terrible liar,” Hordak says, but it’s Catra’s voice Adora hears, and then he’s throwing the thing in his hand on the ground in front of Adora and she looks and it’s Catra’s lifeless body, her head lolling to the side where her throat has been cut to the bone.

“You did this,” Hordak says. “You killed her, Adora.” He smiles, black and terrible. “Adora,” he says again, and it’s Catra’s voice instead. “You killed me.”

She wakes drenches in sweat, hand clutched to her throat where Catra’s had been opened like an oozing bloody smile.

**10.**

Catra refuses to see her.

She’s in the Skyhold dungeons, having been healed in an instant by the Inquisition’s finest. Adora is the Inquisitor, and can go wherever she likes regardless if people want her to or not – but she doesn’t go see Catra, and she can’t quite figure out why.

The Arbor Wilds assault cost their forces dearly, with not much to show for it except for an elven templar in chains. Adora knows they stopped Hordak from seizing the Well and taking its power for his own, but she can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened had she drunk from it. Would she be dead, like Catra feared? Or would she be more powerful than ever, the mark on her hand feeling more and more like the anchor Hordak had described it as, dragging her down with it until she was too deep to do anything but drown?

It’s been three weeks since everything happened and they’ve yet to come up with a plan for their next move. Adora feels more useless than ever, because she’s never been a good strategist. That was Catra’s specialty – and maybe one reason why she’s been avoiding her. Catra has plans within plans within plans like concentric circles inside her mind; Adora’s always been an open book, easily read and even easier understood. She’s afraid of what Catra will see if Adora stands before her; afraid she will know something before even Adora does, because it’s always been that way, from surprise exams Knight-Captain Weaver would spring on them to the first kiss they shared on the barracks parapet that had made Adora’s brain go all kinds of funny until Catra’s mouth moved to her neck and she stopped thinking at all.

It was three days after that kiss that Adora was sent to the Conclave. She counts the seconds shared between them like sand grains in an hourglass but there’s never enough to fill it. “How long?” Adora had asked Catra, back in their shared dorm, her heart pounding as Catra stripped off her uniform. Catra had rolled her eyes and laughed.

“Long,” she’d said, an answer that wasn’t really an answer, and Adora never got the chance to ask again because her mouth was too busy, her hands too full, her mind too quiet to remember why knowing anything outside of this moment was important.

The memory feels like a candle; already its wax leaks out the corners of Adora’s brain. She isn’t sure how much longer she’ll be able to hold onto it – how long until it disappears almost entirely, leaving only the ghost of its heat like a Chantry prayer.

**11.**

They had shared a dance at the Winter Palace.

It was the first time Adora had seen Catra since the assault on Haven. She had hoped, then, to persuade Catra onto their side; had not anticipated the fiery fury alight in Catra’s eyes when they crossed paths at the southern trebuchet, had barely managed to open her mouth before Catra’s daggers were upon her.

In Orlais it was different. Adora had tossed a caprice coin into the fountain over her shoulder but the inevitable splash never came – she’d turned, feeling unsteady without the weight of her armour, to see the coin held between Catra’s thumb and forefinger, a grin steadfastly in place as she met Adora’s gaze.

“What did you wish for?” she’d asked, pocketing the coin. “I hope it wasn’t anything important.”

“Like I’d tell you,” Adora had replied, the words feeling juvenile as soon as they left her mouth. Catra’s grin had widened.

“When you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, Inquisitor,” she’d said, sidling up to Adora’s side and it was only then that Adora had noticed the stolen Inquisition uniform, “I have a spot saved on my dance card just for you.” She’d pressed her body into Adora’s until there was no space between them; slid a hand into Adora’s pocket and another up to rest against the side of her neck. “You know where to find me,” she’d barely needed to whisper, before pulling away and disappearing into the depths of the palace. Adora had stood still for half a moment before reaching into the pocket Catra’s hand had been; pulled out the caprice coin.

 _Wishes are for children_ , Knight-Captain Weaver had told a ten-year-old Adora when she caught her and Catra throwing stones down the barracks well. _Children don’t become templars._

Adora tossed the coin in anyway. She needed all the luck she could get.

She found Catra in the ballroom, leaning against one of the entrance pillars like she owned the place. “I’m asking you nicely to leave,” Adora had said, pulling Catra onto the dance floor and working to keep her scowl in place. “Before things get messy.”

Catra had tutted under her breath. “Can you really afford to let that happen?” she’d said, glancing around the room and taking note of the hostile gazes sent Adora’s way. “Looks like your court approval won’t stand another hit.” She extended her arm and Adora obligingly twirled away.

“You think I care about that?” she’d replied when Catra twirled her back in.

“If you don’t then you’re naïve.” Catra dipped her, low, low enough that Adora’s hair brushed the marble. “Rebellions are built on charisma, Inquisitor, of which you have very little.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you have it in spades?”

Catra had smiled; drawn Adora back into her arms, pressed their bodies tightly together, far more so than was appropriate. “You used to,” she’d whispered into the shell of Adora’s ear, before twirling her again and letting go. The mark on Adora’s hand sparked at the loss of contact – Catra had seen, and her smile turned dark.

“Stay out of the way,” she’d said, and there was an unfinished _or else_ to the sentence.

She’d seen Catra again after they’d put an end to Florianne. It was for half a moment, nothing more – Catra silhouetted against the moon as she’d crouched on the balustrade, ready to jump. Adora had reached out, more on instinct than conscious action – could still feel, though of course she was only imagining it, the phantom touch of Catra’s hand in her own – and could only watch as Catra leapt into the darkness once more, Adora powerless, as always, to stop her.

**12.**

She visits Catra the night before her trial.

“You’re not even going to try to defend yourself?” Adora asks, incredulous. Catra shrugs, a long, languid motion that rolls all the way up her spine.

“Why would I? They’ve already decided I’m guilty.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yeah, well.” Catra meets Adora’s eyes in the dim. “Honestly I’m considering putting in a request for a different judge, conflict of interest and all that.”

“I’m the only judge, Catra.”

“And the templars are supposed to be the corrupt ones,” Catra scoffs as Adora flushes. 

“The Inquisition is only temporary. There was no time to set up – you know, any kind of –”

“– legitimate system of governance?” Catra finishes for her. “Let me know when you sort that out, yeah?”

“ _Catra_ –”

“Inquisitor.” Catra rolls over in her cell, putting her back to Adora. “Just – go to bed, Adora,” she says quietly to the wall. “I’ll be fine.”

They can both hear the lie in the words, but Adora goes, anyway. She owes Catra that much, at least.

**13.**

The trial never happens, because Hordak invades Skyhold the next morning.

**14.**

Adora had never killed, before the Inquisition. She’d been a templar-in-training, really – had never faced an abomination in the flesh, had never swung her greatsword at a person with the intent to end their life.

She’s killed plenty, now. So many she can’t keep count. Wiping the blood off her sword has become just as routine as polishing her armour in the barracks used to be – it’s mechanical, more than anything, the bodies at her feet simply obstacles to overcome in her mission to stop Hordak forever.

She carried out an execution, once. It was different to killing on the battlefield in a way Adora couldn’t explain – made her hands all clammy as they gripped her sword, gave her double vision every time she looked down at the prisoner until she forced herself to stop looking.

She’d lifted her sword and swung, and felt nothing, after. The next day her party had made for the Emerald Graves and killing the Freemen hadn’t made her blink. She hated it. She loved it. She didn’t know who she was, anymore.

**15.**

Hordak comes to Skyhold and Adora kills more red templars than ever to try and reach him in the fray. She doesn’t look at their faces – doesn’t want to see the twisted remains of people she once called friends.

It isn’t hard to find Hordak because he’s looking for her, too. “I won’t kill you yet,” he tells her, after a blast that knocks her off her feet and into the crumbling stone battlements twenty paces away. The impact forces all the breath from her body and she chokes, scrabbling at the cobblestones for purchase as she tries to stand.

Hordak knocks her down again. “You will watch as your friends suffer and die. I will lash the flesh from their bones and use their magic to breach the Fade once and for all, and you will watch, right to the very end.”

Adora’s sword lies ten paces away, where she’d dropped it after Hordak had landed a blow beneath her ribs. She’ll never reach it – already her body is curling in on itself, an unconscious protection against the pain radiating throughout, and her vision has blurred to the point where Hordak is nothing but a shadow, silhouetted against the bloody battle sky behind.

The mark on her hand crackles to life and Adora pours all she has left into it: all her fear and anger and pain and sorrow, until it pulses like a bomb about to blow up.

“Your foolish attempts at controlling the anchor cannot stop me,” Hordak snarls, lifting Adora bodily from the ground and drawing her up to his face. “You are no mage. You are weak. And you will die.”

Something catches in the corner of Adora’s blurred vision – a flash of dual daggers in the sun, dipped green in poison. “Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter,” she spits out, the words rubbing her throat raw. “Blessed are the peacekeepers –” the daggers behind Hordak, raised high, reflecting a mismatched gaze narrowed in fury, “– the champions of the just.” She propels herself from Hordak’s grip with all the strength in her marked hand and watches, as she falls through the air, the anger on his face melting into shock as the blast from the anchor sends him stumbling backwards into Catra’s waiting blades, as the poisoned daggers slice his neck clean through.

Hordak’s head rolls across the cobbles and comes to a stop beneath Catra’s foot even as his body falls, lifeless, off the lip of the battlements. “Blessed are the righteous,” Catra says, staring down at his head, “the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker’s will is written.” She looks at Adora. “Thought you weren’t a templar anymore.”

Adora struggles to her feet. “I’m not,” she replies, feeling blood dribble down her chin. “I’m trying to be what they should’ve been. A force for good – for peace.” She wraps her arms around her aching ribs as the battle winds down around them. “How did you get out?”

“Some mage blasted the door open,” Catra replies, kicking Hordak’s head behind her and not watching to see where it lands. “Glitter, I think? A rogue in a crop top had my knives.”

“Still think they’ve already decided you’re guilty?” she asks, trying not to laugh to spare her ribs the pain.

“After I killed the big bad for you?” Catra scoffs. “Please. They better make me the new Inquisitor.”

“You can have the title,” Adora says. “I don’t need it anymore.”

Catra cocks her head to the side and considers. “What about the power? The prestige?”

“Oh, it’ll be a wrench to give that up,” Adora smiles. “But if I’m with the right people, I rather think I’ll manage.”

Catra rolls her eyes, smiles, and it’s a grin Adora knows by heart. “Why do you have to make things so lame?” she says, looking around the battlefield, Inquisition forces victorious. “You know,” she continues, “I never wanted to be a templar.”

Adora laughs, even as it slices like a lance through her chest. “I know,” she says, as the sun breaks through the clouds behind them; in the sudden light, Catra’s yellow eye gleams gold, as shiny and steadfast as a promise kept.

**16.**

“This bed is ridiculous.”

“I know.”

“This whole _room_ is ridiculous – didn’t you tell them you hate heights?”

“It didn’t seem the time.”

“And Andraste’s ass, what the hell do you need _four ceremonial outfits for_?”

“For all the parties I attend, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“I can see if I can get you an invite.”

“I would literally rather stab myself.”

“Okay, but, don’t use my ceremonial dagger, it’s so hard to get the blood out.”

“Your ceremonial _what_?”

“It’s gilded, see?”

“…If this disappears from your bedroom, don’t blame me.”

“I can still put you on trial, you know.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

**17.**

The Inquisition disbands two months after Hordak is killed. There’d been trials, nobles wringing their hands over favours, soldiers demanding severance pay – not to mention the election of a new Divine.

Glimmer suited the office quite perfectly, Adora thought as the results were announced.

And then there’d been the matter of the mark on her hand – she’d closed all the rifts, and there was no need of it anymore, but nothing the mages did could get rid of it.

“There is another option,” Perfuma had told her and Catra in the closed suite of Adora’s rooms. “We remove the hand entirely.”

“Are you kidding?” Catra had snapped. “No way. _No. Way._ ”

“If we don’t remove the mark,” Perfuma said gently, “it will kill you.”

The choice was easy, after that.

Her last day in the Inquisition, Adora gives Mermista her greatsword. “I can’t use it anymore,” she says. “Catra’s training me in daggers – well, dagger, singular.”

“I’ve literally always wanted this sword,” Mermista replies, hefting it over her shoulder with a grin. “Hey – you got this. You’re the Herald of Andraste.”

“It’s just Adora, now,” she says, feeling the absence of the anchor more keenly than she has since it was removed. “Go easy on Seahawk, yeah?” They embrace, and Adora blinks back her tears. Knight-Captain Weaver used to forbid her charges from crying in public – it’s a habit that’ll take Adora more than a couple years to break.

It’s Glimmer and Bow’s last day at Skyhold, too, before she assumes her position as Divine and Bow as her Left Hand. “Promise you’ll visit?” Glimmer says, no such qualms about crying evident in the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I wouldn’t dare not to,” Adora smiles back. “Take care of her?”

“Duh,” Bow sniffles, throwing his arms around them both and crushing them into a hug.

“Easy on the ribs,” Adora chokes out, but hugs back, just as tightly. “Go fix the world,” she whispers into Glimmer’s collar, hiding her quiet tears in the fabric. Glimmer draws back from the embrace and for a moment, between the stained-glass panels of Skyhold’s throne room windows, she is the spit of Divine Angella.

 _So much good from so much bad_ , Adora thinks. She’s glad she was at the Conclave that day.

**18.**

The goodbyes fly through her fingers and suddenly it’s time to leave. Adora takes a long, last look at Skyhold, this castle with so much history – and now, new life to go along with it.

“You’ve gotten so sentimental,” Catra teases, nudging her shoulder as Adora stares up at the battlements, tries to memorise the way they cradle the clouds. “It’s not like you’ll never see it again.”

“Maybe I won’t,” Adora replies. “I’m not the Inquisitor anymore.”

“No, you’re not.” Catra waits until Adora turns away from the castle and meets her gaze before continuing. “You’re someone more. You always have been.”

“Now who’s sentimental?” Adora asks, but even as they begin the trek out of Skyhold’s massive gates and into the Orlesian mountains, she turns Catra’s words over in her head. Templar, Herald, Inquisitor – they are all she’s ever been. She doesn’t really know who she is without them.

But she’s ready to find out.

**19.**

Adora dreams of the Conclave. “Someone, help me,” Angella implores, caught in the web of Hordak’s magic. Her eyes meet Adora’s through the chaos – she sends the orb tumbling from Hordak’s grip and it rolls across the stones towards Adora.

She could walk away. She could let Hordak take back the orb and go home to the templars, to Catra – she could let the world fall apart, but she could keep her old life, her friends, her identity, her hand –

She picks up the orb.

It isn’t even a choice.

**20.**

Catra shakes her awake. “You were having a nightmare,” she says, brows drawn together in concern. Adora lifts a hand up to her cheek; strokes her thumb along the line of Catra’s cheekbone, feeling the flutter of her eyelid as it closes against Adora's touch.

“It’s over now,” she says simply, and falls back asleep, to dream of better things.


End file.
